Outsourced and other CIFF thoughts, and off to Germany

This year’s CIFF ends tomorrow, but the closing gala is tonight- this has been a practice over the last couple of years, to have the closing gala on the last Saturday, which makes good sense since people (people unlucky not to be me, I mean) have to go to work on Monday morning. So bearing in mind that the fest is far from over, here are my highlights so far:

1. In general, the size of the crowds has been completely inspiring. I’ve been in four sell-outs (of 11 films so far, and tonight’s gala, Ang Lee’s Se, Jie, will certainly be one as well). The other sold-out shows among my itinerary have been Let’s All Hate Toronto, Persepolis, Outsourced, and The Fiddle and the Drum. While we were in line to see TFATD, I took a picture of the line-up across the street. I don’t know what was showing, but this scene was completely typical:

2. I haven’t seen a thing that I hated. This is pretty epic for a film festival. I might have just been completely lucky, but I really think that the focus has shifted to showing more quality and more often (there have, thank God, been many more repeat screenings this year versus previous years). Among everything, I have to say that my favourite was a sweet comedy called Outsourced. It’s about a guy who runs his company’s call centre in Seattle, and he’s required to set up a new call centre in India to replace the one in the US. If you expect this is going to be a hilarious take on those silly, silly Indians, it’s not. This movie has a lot of heart, and it’s more about his acclimation to and growing respect for India and Indians. It’s a beautiful thing, and reflecting on one scene, which is about a moment of unconditional generosity and how dignified some people can be in the face of poverty (it’s about food, too- you have to see the film to find out what I’m talking about) is bringing a tear to my eye. Right. This. Very. Minute. If I could vote for audience favourite (I can’t, because apparently a sponsor pass doesn’t work for that sort of thing), this would be my vote.

3. I’m really proud of the Calgary audiences for the rollicking quality of the Q&A sessions. People are sticking around, asking insightful and challenging questions, and really getting into the whole spirit of the thing.

So that’s CIFF for another year.

So as mentioned previously, I’m off to Europe (mostly Germany) from October 1 - 22. I haven’t been to Germany (or anywhere in Europe, actually) since 1981, when I spent 7 weeks with a family in Krefeld, which is near Duesseldorf, as a participant in Indiana University’s Honors Program in Foreign Languages for High School Students. This is a perfectly amazing program that entails living with a host family, taking courses in language and culture, and (this is the unique part) AGREEING TO NOT SPEAK ENGLISH while in the country of study. When I was in it, the IU program sent 30 finalists (it’s a competition, entailing written tests and interviews in the relevant language) each to Germany (Krefeld), France (San Brieuc) and Mexico (San Luis Potosi): one German group, one French group, one Spanish group. Nowadays, as you can see at the website, they send one group to Germany, two to France, one to Mexico, and FOUR to Spain. German instruction is dying in the US. Not that I lament this- German is a pretty useless language, and I wish to hell that I was not so afraid of being called a “sissy” (in the US, not Canada of course) so that I’d have taken French instead. But maintaining my German, like any foreign language, is good for my brain, and I’m thrilled to finally be able to use it to talk to anybody besides the occasional tourist here. Ich freue mich auf diese Reise!

So for the first time in my life I have a Eurail pass (Germany-Benelux, hence my spur-of-the-moment decision to go to Luxembourg for 4 days).

My itinerary is Frankfurt-Köln-Luxembourg-Berlin-Frankfurt. I’ll be alone- Brian couldn’t afford the time. And no, I won’t be going to München for Oktoberfest; I see enough drunken idiots here during Stampede. I could, probably, go anywhere in Europe and be happy, so these are sort of random choices. Whether they end up being good or not- I’ll keep you posted.

Tschüss, bis später!

Persepolis

I saw this last night at Brian’s urging. since he was in Edmonton and couldn’t make it. It was, as far as I could tell, sold out, and it’s been interesting to note how much the crowd changes at CIFF with “special interest” screenings: Ukrainians at Orange Revolution, b-boys at Bomb It!, and Iranian people at Persepolis. I love animation, and the story sounded sad and interesting, so I consented, and I’m really glad I did.

I’ve read a few reviews of this film and none seem to have made this comparison, so here’s my contribution: A lot of it reminded me of Hope and Glory, which was a 1987 film with reminiscings of being a little boy during WWII in London and the sort of fun that kids had around the excitement of the blitzes. The first part of Persepolis is like that (”MY uncle was imprisoned by the Shah for nine years- yours was only in prison for seven!”), except it’s from a little girl’s perspective, and the events are the period before the fall of the Shah of Iran and then the Iraq-Iran war. It is, at points, horribly, horribly sad, but as told through the eyes of a precocious, mischievous child, it’s also sweet and charming. As the film continues, it encompasses more of the outside-of-Iran bio of the author (Marjane Satrapi, who wrote/drew the graphic novel on which the film is based) and then her return to Tehran (from Vienna) for university, and this part struck me as more self-indulgent and, frankly, boring, but all in all this is a superb film. It’s in French (Satrapi lives in France now and was schooled in French), which is a bit odd. They even refer to “Dieu” instead of “Allah” or “Khoda.” But it would be even more odd to see it in English, which we’re going to be stuck with here. Unfortunately you won’t be able to see it in theatres here until that dreaded English-language version is released in August 2008 (or so I read on IMDB), which means, I think, that a North American DVD won’t be in the offing until more than a year from now. But I might be misinformed about this. At any rate, I feel really lucky, blessed even, to have seen this film, and whenever you get the chance, please do check it out.

CIFF 2007: So far, so good!

Among the changes I’ve seen in Calgary since moving here in 2000 (it was August), one of the happiest has been to witness the evolution of the Calgary International Film Festival. It started a few weeks after my arrival in this city, coinciding with the re-opening of The Uptown Stage and Screen as a permanent venue. It was on three screens- two at the Uptown and one across the street at the Globe. Yes, it was such a tiny festival that the Globe kept one of its screens for its regular schedule. I had to buy tickets at Ticketmaster- no dedicated box office. Joe Boxer was a major sponsor. The gala opening party was at Eatons, which is also pretty inscrutable. The whole thing took place over two weekends, six days, and the princely sum of 40 titles were screened. It was like a college film series, but the founders managed some pretty cool branding (it’s still in use, the logo I mean), the buzz was palpable, and I had the feeling that this was going to be a continuing thing.

CIFF’s growth was fast, and it’s leapfrogged other festivals to become the third biggest in Canada, by number of screenings. Sponsorship has grown; they snagged AMEX as presenting sponsor this year, and while the national press has done a piss-poor job of catching up (still no mention in The Globe, though this year’s fest is only 4 days in so far, so there’s still hope there), we have a major event here. And it’s an exhausting but exhilarating thing.

Since I’m on sabbatical, I can see a lot of titles, although given the fact that there aren’t that many daytime screenings during the week, I don’t think I’m going to beat my average (between, say, 13 and 18 films or shorts programs) this year. But we’ll see. Since Friday, I’ve seen six films, and five have been docs. I like docs- if I have to leave early, I can still be happy to have been exposed to something interesting, because there’s usually no investment in a narrative. If I want to know the “ending” I can google it or whatever. And when they’re good, it’s the most satisfying and enraging and moving sort of film, for me at least. Anyway, I am thrilled to write that I’ve enjoyed everything so far this year. Film fests are always crap shoots, and the gamble fizzles as often as it pays off. I’ve had to sit through some garbage, including critically-acclaimed garbage (the best example of which I can think of was a stinkfest a couple years ago called Scared Sacred, which was a load of self-evident nonsense that I walked out on) to get to the gems, but this year has been different. The titles are Poor Boy’s Game, Girls Rock, Orange Revolution, Let’s All Hate Toronto, Bomb It!, and The Bodybuilder and I. You can peruse the synopses at the CIFF site, but I have to say that for pure entertainment and a fun and engaging Q and A, Let’s All Hate Toronto was a scream. It’s by Albert Nerenberg, who is one of the brains behind the hilarious website called trailervision, and Rob Spence (who plays “Mr. Toronto” and travels across Canada promoting “Toronto Appreciation Day”). Check out the website for trailers and info about the film’s release schedule and DVD updates. I cannot wait to get my hands on the DVD for outtakes. This is a fantastic achievement.

So there’s more of that to look forward to. In the meantime, I’m preparing to depart on Oct 1 for 22 days in Europe (almost all Germany with a few days in Luxembourg), and I am trying to get another manuscript done before that, so I’m off.

Whither, fair loonie?

The loonie reached and briefly exceeded parity with the US dollar today.

Loonie, I love you, I love your shape and your colour and your face and everything about you, but your timing is crappy. Where was your robustness when I was paying back $20,000 of $25,000 in student loans- AMERICAN student loans- in your stunted currency starting when I emigrated in 1997? That was hell- I spent a lot of time behind the wheel back then, driving from teaching contract to teaching contract all around the Toronto area, and every day I’d listen to the financial news in the car and break into a cold sweat around dollar news. I remember it breaking 70 cents (from above, I mean). I remember it touching 62 cents. I remember having to deposit something like $500 a month Canadian into my TD US dollar account just to cover that month’s US$300 and change student loan payment… and then there were the US credit cards, too. I used most of my share of proceeds from two property sales, tens of thousands of dollars, to pay off all my US debts in muscular US dollars, having to buy those fat dollars with anemic Canadian ones.

And now you’re even with the greenback. And you might go higher.

Oh, loonie, your timing! Not only did I miss the boat (and lose thousands of dollars) by paying off my loans and bills when I did, but now I’m getting paid for work in the States, and my most recent cheque was worth FEWER Canadian dollars, after transaction fees. We’re talking nary a cent on the dollar, so far, but when I think that this check would have paid me something like 1.50 per US dollar a few years ago, it really confuses me. Sure, this is a point of national pride, and I’m enough of a Canadian now to feel it. But there are so many downsides to your strength, loonie. And as I say, your timing is terrible.

Complaining about Calgary is like competing in the Special Olympics…

…and not only because you’re still retarded in the end. It’s because it’s too damn easy these days. I was reading a thread at calgarypuck.com (I don’t have an account there; I am just drawn to the discussion, and when there’s no hockey, they discuss…other things) on whether “Calgary has lost it’s [SIC] appeal,” and the range of whining is completely unfocussed and completely out of hand. The city is “too big,” but it’s “not as interesting as [Montreal, Toronto, Hong Kong, etc.]” and thus “too small.” It “lacks culture” but has lost its “small-town atmosphere.” People have become “urban and unfriendly,” but at the same time there are too many “hicks from [Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Thunder Bay, etc.].”

Look, everybody, just shut the hell up and take some deep breaths. Calgary can’t be all things to all people. No city can. But the random, contradictory, and (frankly) ignorant commentary about the bad new version of this city is starting to piss me off more than the problems of a growing, evolving city ever have. You want culture? You have to accept growth. You want diversity? You have to accept growth. You want the amenities of a major city? Well, guess what folks: THIS is what being a major city, a major city in the midst of an almost preposterously booming economy, is like.

You liked the old days? When Calgary was “friendly”? Are you talking about the old days as summarised at Pride Calgary? They went like this, in 1991:

Calgary has celebrated Gay Pride since 1990. In 1991 a small group of activists obtained a proclamation from Mayor Al Duerr, who understood the issues in terms of minority struggle. Unfortunately, the virulent backlash levied against him and his family put an end to that. That first rally - minus a parade, which was believed to be too radical even for 1990s Calgary - attracted 192 people. Some participants wore paper bags over their heads.

Needless to say, Pride 2007 was nothing like this. That’s not to say that the past was hate-infused or that we live in pure harmony now. The fact that Calgary is now the third most ethnically diverse major city in Canada, a city that took in more international immigrants, per capita, in 2006 than did nearly any other city in North America, also means that the mere opportunities for conflict are greater now than in, say, 1986. But my point is that people waxing nostalgic for how great things were in the past are probably doing a really bad job of remembering it. Even Calgary’s much-ballyhooed recent crime wave was not as severe as crime in, say, the 1980s. We are better off now in many ways, and I prefer the present.

Finally, on “culture.” This one riles me the most. Most people who criticise the cultural offerings here have no idea what is happening in this city. Here’s a typical conversation I’ve had too many times with both newcomers and suburbanites who’ve been here for decades:

Them: One thing I can’t stand about this city is the lack of culture!
Me: What do you mean?
Them: There’s no CULTURE here!
Me: I heard you the first time. I’m asking what you mean by “culture.”
Them: You know, plays, art, ballet, film…
Me: Oh, CULTURE. Well, since you’ve been so starved for that, you must have been so happy about this year’s High Performance Rodeo! Didn’t you love Laurie Anderson? And Compagnie Marie Chouinard? And the Kronos Quartet?
Them: What are you referring to? The high performance what?
Me: High Performance Rodeo- you know, you’re such a culture expert, you must know all about the oldest juried performance art festival in the world! So tell me, what was your favourite act this year?
Them: I’ve never even heard about this…
Me: Okay, you JUST TOLD ME that Calgary had NO CULTURE, but you don’t even make an EFFORT to find out what we DO have, especially when we have a world-class arts event like this?
Them: Look, one event doesn’t mean the city has culture.
Me: Okay, have you been to Wordfest?
Them: huh?
Me: Folk Fest?
Them: er…
Me: Fairytales Queer Film Festival?
Them: duh…
Me: Word on the Street?
Them: ummmmmm…
Me: The Honens International Piano Competition?
Them: durrrrr…
Me: The New Calgary Jazz Festival?
Them: grrrak…
Me: The Calgary International Film Festival?
Them: rrrrllllleeeemmmmbb…
Me: Canadian PlayRites Festival?
Them: I have to get to Olive Garden for dinner. Excuse me.

The next time you deride your city- whatever city that might be- for “lacking culture,” think about what you participate in and what you support. If your efforts have gone unnoticed or unrewarded, then complain away. But when you DON’T EVEN KNOW what’s happening in your own neighbourhood, just keep your stupid, ignorant mouth closed, stuffed with timbits.

Gah. People get to me sometimes.